Water pipe (illustrative)
Water pipe (illustrative)Flash90

Andy Levin, US Democratic Representative for Michigan's 9th congressional district, toured Israel last week but did not have kind things to say about his ancestral homeland following a tour of Judea. Instead, he slammed the Israeli government for denying access to Susya, an illegal Arab village south of Hevron, while supplying it to "illegal Israeli outposts."

“Yesterday, I traveled to the southern West Bank, including the Palestinian village of Susya, which the Israeli government has destroyed twice and currently denies access to water,” he wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. “Yet we watched the government utility, right before our eyes, lay in pipes right across the village’s land to deliver tap water to an illegal Israeli outpost nearby.”

“It was simply incredible. As angry as the situation made me, the resilience of the Palestinian villagers left an even stronger impression."

Israel has demolished illegally constructed buildings in Susya several times.

On Thursday, the Israeli government responded to Levin's inflammatory comments. The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a unit in the Israeli Ministry of Defense that engages in coordinating civilian issues between Israel, the IDF, international organizations and the Palestinian Authority, wrote on Twitter: "We were surprised to read Rep. Andy Levin's tweet. The pipe is part of a major water infrastructure project for the region and will serve all populations in the area, mainly the Palestinians. We regret that your hosts mislead you and misrepresented the situation."

At the end of the response, COGAT added the hashtag #facts matter.